i don’t get low poly at all. i can find many, many, many quick tuts online, but i can’t find anything explaining the underlying principles so i can do it myself and apply and extend my knowledge.
i have problems. here are just a small few.
how many subdivisions is best for a character’s head, so that i can easily fit the eyes, nose, and other things in, without having too much?
Have you tried starting with mirrored planes and building your models up that way? I find it easier to control the shapes. Particularly with a head model. Most of the other parts would start fairly well as primitives though. Like the arms, legs or torso. Cylinders are a good option for those. It might sound obvious, but some kind of reference is always a great way to stay on track. I know a lot of people who don’t bother with it. It does help.
Also one tip. Depends on the videogame you want to make the model for. You can use more or less ammount of polygons, is up to you to decide if in the videogame you going to see a lot of characters in the screen, or not, or if the screen is going to be loaded with a lot of detailed objects, etc.
For general rule, you dont use subdivision surface when modelling low poly. When you need you just add more geometry (with the option subdivide) or edge loops and thats it.
How many faces you need for the head or wathever? that is up to you. The modelling learning courve implies that you will be discovering these things with practice, and eventually you will model things as they go. I could give you a hint, and say that overall, that a low-poly object should not have more than around 1000 faces. But again, depends on the videogame and the object. If it is a tree, obviously you will need a lot of em, so 1000 faces will be already too much for each one.
Just model and add geometry as you need keeping an eye on the number of faces.
And, i forgot, to close the eye, you can just use a shape node.
Well you dont want to just make some boxes, subdivide five times and try modeling a character out of that. Start with something like a box or a plane and gradually shape it into what you want by adding new rings, edges, and faces, then once you have a basic shape you can start subdividing and adding details.
@RickyBlender I’m not going for realism, okay? I don’t care about realistic proportions, because I’m making more cartoonish characters.
@Macser No, I usually build my models all in one piece, extruding arms and legs and such. I will try your method. It seems like it’d work better.
@n3mes1s I am using shape keys, that wasn’t the point though. I can’t get the eye to close without severe deformation, even though my topology is good.
@NiklasWerth It was just for the sake of example. The point I was making was determining the optimum number of subdivisions for a good head model. Various tutorials vary greatly on this, and it makes me wonder.
@Modron What I told @RickyBlender, I don’t want realism. Additionally, I’m going for low-poly, so that’s a bit too much work than is necessary.
Doing it right the first time is not wasting time. Realism is irrelevant. a cartoon head is still an organic form. The result can be as dense or not dense poly-wise as you like.
